"I concluded that I might take as a general rule the principle that all things which we very clearly and obviously conceive are true: only observing, however, that there is some difficulty in rightly determining the objects which we distinctly conceive."Rene Descartes

ALso, really being fluent in BS requires a mastery of vernacular and colloquialism. For example there is a vernacular mode of description peculiar to the United States Armed Forces logistics departments, such as QUartermasdters, in which trails of adjectives are appended with commas to define an article. For example, "Shirts, men's, uniform B, blue, small". In a humorous vein, if one were addressing a knowledgeable, sensitive, and humor-endowed audience, one could extend this ridiculous architecture to parsing a common expression such as "How d'you like them apples?" (a colloquialism which requires extended cultuiral literacy to recognize) by, for example, presenting a parsed version as "Apples, liking of, how..." THis is definitely pure BS (and it is presented in screed form, not a pile) but absent the necessary prerequisite frameworks and education, the delicacy of it as such might easily escape the attention of an inappropriate audience. As here.

No rebuttal is likely. My arguments are fastidious and impeccable, unlike the delusory sloppiness of my friends Rapaire (who still thinks of himself as "over there") and Little Hawk, who would rebut ANYTHING under the sun if only it would give him an opportunity to bloviate philosophically). Man of Emms, at least, is being candid and honorable among MOABITES. THe rest of you may lick my lily-white tennis shoes. AKA, "Shoes, civilian, tennis, lily-white, AA, Size 10".

How sharper than a serpent's tooth is the sting of an ungrateful colleague!! Oh, man of Emms, once benevolent and astute, how quickly you have become mean and cross-eyed and even, to use another military colloquialism, fucked up. Surely you could not, in your right mind, imagine someone would wear dog turds on their feet? Surely your grasp of biochemistry is better than to draw such a comparison, and you understand the difference between canvas and fecal matter?

He was not at all afraid to be killed in nasty ways, brave, brave, brave, brave Sir Rapaire.

He was not in the least bit scared to be mashed into a pulp, or to have his eyes gouged out, and his elbows broken. To have his kneecaps split, and his body burned away, and his limbs all hacked and mangled, brave Sir Rapaire. His head smashed in and heart cut out, and his liver removed, and his bowels unplugged, and his nostrils raped and his bottom burned off and his penis...*(based on Monty Python, Brave Sir Robin)

He was not at all afraid to be killed in nasty ways, brave, brave, brave, brave Sir Rapaire.

He was not in the least bit scared to be mashed into a pulp, or to have his eyes gouged out, and his elbows broken. To have his kneecaps split, and his body burned away, and his limbs all hacked and mangled, brave Sir Rapaire. His head smashed in and heart cut out, and his liver removed, and his bowels unplugged, and his nostrils raped and his bottom burned off and his penis...*(based on Monty Python, Brave Sir Robin)

You will not be killed, noble Rapaire, but you WILL have to lick my lily-white dog-shit-coated tennis sneakers. Unless the MOAB women in concord demand your complete and unqualified forgiveness for all crimes and conceits real or imaginary.,

In my NPS and USFS days I used to have to occasionally order things from the GSA catalog. You described it very well. The trick is figuring out that "stainless steel, wire, bent" is what they call "paper clip." (I no longer remember if this is what they call a paper clip, but it gives you the gist of the problem).

I work at home, so I was looking for a place to relax on days when I had quite a bit to accomplish, otherwise I would never get any work done!

Let me start by saying that paying someone to bathe me normally goes against my grain. But, sometimes it's necessary when the weather is too cold outside and one is waaay overdue.

After checking websites and calling for details, I thought it would give it a try. According to the website, for a self-serve bath, they offer shampoo, conditioner, brushes, towels, nail trimmers, ear and teeth wipes, and a blow dryer. Just in case, I brought my own nail trimmers and grooming scissors. First off, there was a short wait, which was not soo unpleasant cause I got to watch others preparing for their bath time.

I paid only $15 to use their tubs, which is fairly cheap for what should have been a hassle-free bath for me, since I am a woolly mammoth. having long thick hair that is high maintenance, grooming-wise.

But once I got into the bathing area, everything went straight to hell. This was my maiden voyage and they knew that. The lady explained only part of the process, which was the shampoo and "here's some brushes". I had to ask for nail trimmers (wanted to use theirs cause mine are dull… but ended up with mine anyway). No ear or dental wipes were made available and the kicker is they leave you alone and if you have a question "whatta ya gonna do"???

I know some of my disappointment may have been colored, because I completely freaked about being left alone. The bath areas were really high and I feared falling off. Also, there was alot of noise and distractions. So I wanted to hurry up , since not having all the tools handy was a problem.

Finally, I get in the tub and go to shampoo… and the shampoo is just like water. I even had to hunt someone down and ask if I had the right stuff? And they said yes, "it just doesn't suds up". WTF? Alone, how do I know where I've cleaned and then how do I know if I've rinsed it all off? I burned thru 2 bottles of this, "cleaning water" (O had to hunt someone down for 2nd bottle and believe me, I din't like asking). The guy in the next stall had to use dial hand soap when he ran out of said "shampoo". There was another guy there bathing and he asked if this was that my first time? Cause, he said he'd been before but things had changed, namely the, so called shampoo, and he was not happy either.

I do smell a little better now. But, from now on I will rely on my own supplies at my own house. I just hope it gets me thru the cold months!

Try oil of oregano. Brush teeth and tongue thorougly first and rinse your mouth out. Then put about 4 drops of oil of oregano on your tongue and swish it all around in your mouth. It tastes like liquid fire, and the germs don't like it. You may not like it either, but put up with it anyway, because it really works. Don't bother spitting it out. Just keep swishing it around in your mouth with the saliva, and eventually swallow it. Very good to combat a cold of any kind, I find.

Students of the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) first used the word 'metaphysica' (literally "after the physical") to refer to what their teacher described as "the science of being qua being" - later known as ontology. 'Qua' means 'in the capacity of'. Hence, ontology is inquiry into being in so much as it is being, or into being in general, beyond any particular thing which is or exists; and the study of beings insofar as they exist, and not insofar as, for instance, particular facts obtained about them or particular properties relating to them. More specifically, ontology concerns determining whether some categories of being are fundamental, and asks in what sense the items in those categories can be said to "be".

Some philosophers, notably of the Platonic school, contend that all nouns (including abstract nouns) refer to existent entities. Other philosophers contend that nouns do not always name entities, but that some provide a kind of shorthand for reference to a collection of either objects or events. In this latter view, mind, instead of referring to an entity, refers to a collection of mental events experienced by a person; society refers to a collection of persons with some shared characteristics, and geometry refers to a collection of a specific kind of intellectual activity.[1] Between these poles of realism and nominalism, there are also a variety of other positions; but any ontology must give an account of which words refer to entities, which do not, why, and what categories result. When one applies this process to nouns such as electrons, energy, contract, happiness, space, time, truth, causality, and God, ontology becomes fundamental to many branches of philosophy. [edit] Some fundamental questions

The principal questions of ontology are "What can be said to exist?" and "Into what categories, if any, can we sort existing things?" Various philosophers have provided different answers to these questions.

One common approach is to divide the extant entities into groups called categories. Of course, such lists of categories differ widely from one another, and it is through the co-ordination of different categorial schemes that ontology relates to such fields as library science and artificial intelligence.

Further examples of ontological questions include:

* What is existence? * Is existence a property? * Which entities, if any, are fundamental? * How do the properties of an object relate to the object itself? * What features are the essential, as opposed to merely accidental, attributes of a given object? * How many levels of existence or ontological levels are there? * What is a physical object? * Can one give an account of what it means to say that a physical object exists? * Can one give an account of what it means to say that a non-physical entity exists? * What constitutes the identity of an object? * When does an object go out of existence, as opposed to merely changing? * Why does Rapaire have to be that way?